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AN 



ORATION. 



DEtlTERED BEFORE THE 



WASHINGTON BENEVOLENT SOCIETY 



AT CAMBRIDGE, 



JULY 4, 18U. 



By RICHARD 11. DANA. Esq 



CAMBRIDGE: 

PRIXTED BY HILLIARD AN'D METCALF. 

1.8M. 



r .- C r 

.cns , 



M a meeting of the Standing Committee of the TVnsHngton Be' 
nevolent Society at Cambridge : 

Voted — That Messrs. Proctor Peirce, EliabW. Metoalf, 
and John Trowbridge, be a committee to wait on Richard H. 
Dana, Esq. to express the thanks of the Society for his patriotic 
Oration, delivered before them, and to request a copy thereof for 
the press. 

Attest, WILLIAM HILLIARD, Secr'y. 



ORATION. 



The day wliicli we have met to celebrate, "vvc 
once vainly imagined, was to work an universal 
change in the condition and character of man ; 
that it was to spread its light over the nations 
which we supposed were sitting in the gloom of 
slavery, ignorance and crime ; and that tliey were to 
come forth the renovated beings of freedom, wis- 
dom and virtue. In vision, the very face of na- 
ture was changing; every weak thing was waxing 
strong, and every dry thing green. The world, 
with its swamps and deserts, was shooting forth 
in all the beauty and freshness of Eden ; and man 
walking in the midst, sinless and free as Adam. 
But, alas ! all that our fevered imaginations pic- 
tured out was but a dream. The physical and 
moral world have undergone no change — notwith- 
standing the American Revolution, Arabia still 
has its deserts, and mankind their sins. Human 
natm*e has not yet reached that stage of perfecti- 
bility in which laws are but useless entangle- 
ments, and the power of government but a cum- 
brous restraint upon virtue. Cunning and vio- 
lence are not yet eradicated ; the simple are still 
defrauded, and the weak oppressed ; tlie prodigal 
is neighbour to the frugal, the idle to the indus- 
trious, the factious to the peaceable. 



The rise, the piogress, and v.ould 1 could sav 
the fall of tliis doctrine of equality, perfectibility, 
and absolute liberty in man, is well worlhy a few 
moments consideration. The untimely clieck it 
has put upon the irapiovements and growing pow- 
er of this new country—its fatal connexion with a 
like system in Eui'ope ; and the tremendous force 
with Avliicli, so far as it extended, it swept away 
all that was wortliy the pride of tlie old world, 
give the subject a strong, though melancholy in- 
terest, in the heart of every man whose under- 
standing it has not bewildered ; or whose good- 
ness it has not corrupted. 

This vagary of tlie ])rain, that the virtue of 
man was such as to render political restraint, al- 
most or wholly useless— that his errors and his 
crimes were attributalde to the oppression of old 
established governments — that fixed government 
and tyranny were the same — that distinctions in 
honors, wealth and rank were alike an insult to 
the understanding, and an unauthorized assump- 
tion over the person of man — that the sceptre 
should be broken in pieces, the ribbon torn from 
the breast, and the very land marks of property 
trodden down, began to be inculcated at the close 
of our revolutionary war — a war imbittered by the 
remembrance of ill repaid loyalty, and fond con- 
nexions rudely torn asunder — a w ar which arous- 
ed every feeling of offended pride, and put a keen 
edge on the resentment which will stir Avithin the 
bosom of every high-minded man, Avhen scoffed at 
and insulted. Not a war in which armies are 
sent abroad, while the majority of the nation lose 
the remembrance of it in the occupation of busi- 
ness, or pursuits of pleasure ; but a war which 



kept the spirits in alarm with the gleam of distant 
fires, and stories of approaching desolation — a war 
whicli broke in upon family repose, and carried 
its terrors and death to our peaceful firesides. 
This scene of confusion, of liorrors and gloom at 
last began to break awaj. Tlie heavy clouds 
which had hung over us, black as night, were 
moving to distant regions. The shout of triumph 
and joy of a whole nation ascended as the bright 
sun of our Independence burst out upon them. 

Do but consider what a varied mass of foil}', 
as well as wisdom, of vice as well as virtue, this 
state of things was quickening into an untried 
and violent action. It sent its warming influence 
through the land, and the rank weeds shot up, lux- 
uriant and towering as the oak. The common 
business of life was broken in upon — every man 
became a politician- — the plough was left in the 
furrow, the work shop was shut, and the spider 
spun his web undisturbed over the books of the 
scholar. Ignorance, with her simple system of 
wide spreading destruction, was preparing to 
move forward on her labours ; and Learning, vain 
of her acquirements, and most confident, where 
most inexperienced ; with her brain bewildered 
with ill arranged conceits, was hastening after, 
ready to deck the homliness of this working-day 
world in all the ornaments of her own fantastic 
imagination. The rose was to spread its leaves 
where the sea-weed swings to the tide of ocean — 
the orange was to ripen at the poles ; and palaces 
of ice were to brighten in the sun of the tropics. 
The learned theorist Avas looking forward, with 
complacent expectancy, to the momentous period 
when the work of gigantic destruction should 



commence ; when the proud and stable fabrics 
of European constitutions, sacred with tlie hoar of 
ages, revered as the defences of nations, beloved 
as the guardians of the good ; under whose shel- 
tering dominion the literature, the science, the 
arts, the midtiplied and various improvements, 
the charities and quiet of domestic life, and the 
religion of our Saviour, which threw a charm over 
all, had grown up and flourished, Avhen these fab- 
rics should be crumbled into dust, and all they 
had fostered and protected, should be laid bare 
and shivering to the elements. The mighty e- 
ruption of the political world, sweeping in its 
headlong descent, the land-marks of property, the 
humble home, the palace, the castle and the 
very temple of our God ; was gazed upon with a 
serenity as great as is the silent lapse of waters, 
spreading health, and freshness, and beauty in 
their course. Yain of their own mad systems, 
they heeded not the pain, the poverty , and heavy 
sorrows which awaited the human race. The dis- 
solution of governments, dear to a people, as well 
from their intrinsic merit, as from long rooted 
prejudices, was looked upon with the curious, un- 
moved intentness of the chemist in an analyzing 
process ; and the theorists of the time, thought 
only upon the proud moment when their grand 
experiment should begin. In anticipation, they 
set about clearing away the holy ground, loaded 
with the mighty fragments. The people who lin- 
gered amidst the ruins, dear to them from the re- 
collection of all the comforts and blessings they 
had enjoyed beneath the edifice, when it stood 
entire ami towering in its strength, were driven 
aside by these vain and bustling projectors, to 



make way for the fragile structures of their own 
feehle hands, tricked out in all tlie finery and 
smartness of then* tasteless calling and gilding. 
Happily for our country, notions so absurd, 
hopes so delusive, and desires so criminal, did not 
I attain to their full growth, vigor and popularity, 
in the early and critical period of the old confed- 
eration. They were the darling offspring of a set 
of men, of whom the world then knew little, and 
cared less. Though their countenances had an 
incongruous expression of distraction, idiocy, cun- 
ning, malignity and ferocity; yet so clumsily 
were they put together, with such an unmanage- 
able cumbersomeness of limb, such a ludicrous 
disproportion of the whole bloated frame, that ev* 
ery one who looked upon them thought that such 
sickly deformities would soon be thrown out, an 
offensive mass before the common sun. But, 
alas, how short-sighted is man! These bantlings, 
nourished and dandled by their sires, soon ex- 
panded to an unwieldy bulk. In an unlucky mo- 
ment they attracted the observation, and by a 
strange fatuity of taste and judgment, they speed- 
ily grew into the favor and adoption of a certain 
great man, who has an instinctive yearning for ev- 
ery thing prodigious — a man who has cared and 
thought more about the mammoth, than about a 
fellow-being ; for the very philosophical reason 
that he is a great deal the bigger of the two. Half 
ashamed of this unaccountable attachment, and 
unable to subdue it, because unused to self con- 
ti'ol, he set about the daring project of making 
them as fascinating to otliers, as they were to 
himself. Busy as a milliner, he began decking 
out their diseased and livid nakedness, in all the 



8 

finery of diamonds and ribbons ; and in raptnres 
at his success, be brought thein forward in either 
hand, the objects of disgust to every delicate eye, 
to attract the stupid gaze of the ignorant, and 
awaken the unhallowed joy of the wicked. 

But it was not the labour of a single day wliich 
could allure men from long established princi- 
ples, to those novel in their kind ; though formed 
to flatter the vanity, confirm the pride, and excite 
and indulge the licentious passions of our nature. 
But the season fruitful in projects was approach- 
ing. A new constitution was to be formed ; and 
the opinion of the wisest, that an alteration in our 
ill-jointed government was necessary, gave an in- 
direct sanction to schemes, however undigested 
in their parts, or faulty in their groundwork. The 
mighty labour of throwing off an old and powerful 
government, under which we had lived from our 
political birth, was just accomplished. With 
spirits elevated to intoxication at our new born 
freedom, with hearts confident from success, we 
were called to the solemn work of self-govern- 
ment. 

How vain and transitory the thought, that 
when the storm of war liad passed over us, we 
should sit in the still sunshine of our homes, that 
our labours would be finished, and the Sabbath of 
rest come ! The mightiest of human efibrts was 
before us. How lightly did we esteem its im- 
portance ! How ignorant were we of its difficul- 
ties ! The structure of a constitution which should 
govern by one set of general rules, beings as di- 
versified in their characters as their faces, and 
with pursuits as various as both, which sliould 
put the poor man beyond the haughty dominion 



9 

of the wealthy, and gaard the acquisitions of the 
rich, against the avarice and vulgar envy of the 
low, whicli should direct the energies of the 
country, to protect it from foreign violence, and 
internal discord, yet leave the liberties of the in- 
dividual secure ; wliich, in fine, should prevent 
man from returning to the ignorance and barbar- 
ity of a savage, hold him from the wilds of the 
forest, expand his mind, cultivate his taste, awaken 
the kinder feelings of the heart, make him the 
creature of the refined, social state, spreading 
blessings about liim only to be blessed again — 
and all this to be so framed, as to withstand the 
insidious attempts of those wlio sliould be called 
to guard it, and the assaults of those panting for 
rule ; a structure too, resting not on the virtues 
alone, but on the exact balance of our very vices, 
for its duration ; the high pride of the great, set 
in opposition to the levelling system of the poor ; 
the selfish calculating calmness of the avaricious, 
to the impetuosity of the rash and ambitious. 
Such was the work to be accomplished, so intri- 
cate in its parts, so momentous in its completion, 
to millions of the human race ! 

We have called ourselves the wisest, and freest 
of people. The thoughtless presumption with 
Avhich the most ignorant preached lectures on 
governments, declaimed against all under which 
the world had so long lived, and gravely proposed 
legislating for the whole human race, might in- 
duce others to call us the vainest of people. 
Constitution-mongers came forth, thick and clam- 
orous as reptiles after a rain. It was a time when 
every man felt the safety of a whole people rest- 
ing on the labours of his own mighty mind. At 



10 

the corner of every street, plans of government 
were broiiglit forward, and discussed, with all the 
vehemence that pride of opinion coiUd give them, 
and with an earnestness as great, as if the failure 
of their adoption would lay prostrate the poAver 
and glory of the nation. 

This vanity was as harmless in its nature, as 
it was amusing. But there was cause for gloomy 
apprehension, when there were found amongst 
the leading statesmen of our country, men cursed 
with that paltry ambition, whicli would raise it- 
self to power upon the vices, the follies, and 
prejudices of tlie bad and the ignorant ; wlio, not 
endowed with that elevation of mind which prides 
itself in moral greatness, could oppose the labors 
of those heroes who were struggling to save a 
nation from itself ; to give it a government which 
should strengthen its weakness, subdue its preju- 
dices, confirm its wavering, and raise it to renown 
and poAver amongst the nations of the earth. 
There Avas good cause for dread, Avhen sucli men, 
cold and selfish of heart, Avent forth to preach to 
a people made vain by success, Avitli ears greedy 
for praise, Avith hearts filled Avith hate toAvards 
the constitution and character of a great, free and 
monil nation : to preach to them the doctrine, 
tiiat hberty Avas in danger from the usurpation of 
rulers, not from the excesses of the midtitude ; 
that hiAvs were to su!»juj»*ate tlie lionest poor, not 
to curb the AveaUhy and proud ; that accumula- 
tion of property Avas an assumption of Av hat nature 
intended in common for man ; that the exactions 
of justice Avcre an outrage upon human nature ; 
ami the formalities of her courts, but the mockery 
and refinement of oppi'ession : tliat tliose Ave had 



n 

been wont to call the friends of sober, chastised 
liberty, and well braced government, were the 
supporters of tyrants, and friends of monarchy ; 
and, that under a state of absolute, unadulterated 
freedom, man would surely attain to the perfec- 
tion of human nature. With this system, which 
gave the lie to every man's conscience, whicli 
would turn his unbiassed observation from the 
mingled state of good and ill in life, to gaze with 
bewildering enthusiasm upon the gaudy, hollow, 
fleeting show of liberty, equality, and perfectibility, 
which these political magicians were playing be- 
fore their eyes — with this system, which would 
mingle in one indiscriminate mass, the opposite 
qualities of vice and virtue, which would wrap 
about the leprosy of falsehood with the garments 
of truth, and taint then* purity with its contagious 
loathsomeness, did they attempt to allure the bet- 
ter part of society to tlie worship of the profane 
deities they had set up. This doctrine, rotten at 
its heart, and in all its members, was spread 
through the country, that its authors might be 
elevated to the rule of the nation which tliey had 
deluded and disgraced. 

Fortunately for our country, tliose who led the 
people through the troubles of the revolution, as 
yet retained the love and confidence they h:«d so 
hardly won. Through their labour and influence 
the broad foundation of our constitution was hiid. 
and the fabrick rose in its fair ])roportions, the 
beauty and defence of the nation. When tliey 
had entered it, and looked over the land ; the 
ruins of the war yet stood out distinct in the 
prospect. On our western frontier, its desolating 
course was marked with all tlie multiplied horrors 



IS 

with which savage ferocity coukl crowd the scene. 
When the means were sought to repair the waste 
of the war which had passed over us, and to repel 
that wliich still threatened us, it was found that 
while a heavy debt weighed down the nation, its 
credit was gone. 

Tlie attempts of the Federal party to remove 
these evils, to adjust all disputes with foreign 
powers, to raise the country from poverty, and the 
decay of character, to opulence and dignity, were 
assailed with all the vulgar abuse of the low, and 
malignant persecution of the high. The antipa- 
thies and jealousies of the people were alarmed ; 
they were told that our lenders were following the 
doAv nward course of the old tottering governments 
of Europe ; President Wasliington was accused of 
aping the monarch, of introducing the absurd and 
corrupting forms of courts, into the midst of plain, 
pure republicanism. His ministers were branded 
ai'istocrats, and in the poor Secretary of the treas- 
ury and Ids wife, jolted and squeezed in a lum- 
bering stage coach, on their way to the seat 
of government, were seen the future Lord 
and Lady Hamilton. Men starving in the ser- 
vice of the public, were gravely charged with 
attempting to adorn their beggary with the in- 
signia of office, and coats-of-arms of nobility. 
The petty army raised for the border war, was 
viewed with suspicion, as the instrument of their 
extravagant ambition ; the assumption of the debt, 
as attaching the aristocracy of wealth to the gov- 
ernment ; and the navy, as a useless show, op- 
pressing the honest yeomanry, whilst it adminis'- 
tered to the vanity of their leaders. 



i3 

Whilst the administration, heedless of these 
clamors, pursued with undeyiating firmness the 
plans they had laid out for the good of their coun- 
ti*y, the Spirit of Faction, malignant from disap- 
pointment, was abroad in the land. He looked 
over the soil where once stood the forest, cold, 
gloomy and desolate ; how changed was the 
scene ! Tlie corn waved in the valley ; the grass 
was on the sunny hill. He turned, baffled in his 
evil hopes, from this spot of quiet industry and 
joy ; but on every side he beheld beauties which 
moved his hate. Cities sent forth the sounds 
of labor and gaiety — he saw them the abodes 
of polished life, domestic comforts, and exalted 
virtues. Sick of a prosperity, not the product of 
his own wild schemes, he sent his eve over the 
ocean, thinking there to dwell with a feeling of 
strange delight on the solitude of nature ; but 
even there, the enterprise and industry of man 
met his view. The sail was spread to the winds, 
and voices were heard coming over the waters. 
As he stood on the shore, loathing a scene so full 
of life and joy, the shouts of Kindred Spirits in a 
distant clime broke upon hio ear. He raised his 
drooping head — his shrunken form expanded — 
his eye beamed full and bright ; for he felt that 
the time was drawing nigh, when those who had 
spread here the goodly prospect before him, would 
fall, the victims of his wiles — when this nation 
would soon be his — a nation which they had rais- 
ed to wealth, to power and to glory. 

The doctrine which gleamed faint and dubious 
over this country, broke hot and blasting upon 
the kingdom of France, and every green thing 
lay curled and withered in its scorching light. 



14 

The Revolution had commenced — not a revolution 
in which one king is deposed, and another exalt- 
ed — not one in which the form of government, 
alone is changed ; but one, having for its object 
tlie total subversion of the moral principles of 
man, and the long established order of the social 
state. All distinctions necessary to the quiet of 
society, Avere to l)e done away — tlie links in pri- 
vate life broken asunder. The father was to fore- 
go all peculiar fondness for the child, for the 
false, aflected feeling of a general love of tlie spe- 
cies. All filial reverence and awe were to be 
eradicated from the heart, as a principle destruc- 
tive of the grand doctrine of equality and freedom 
in man. The deep toned lludings were to be 
stilled ; the gentle affections, which had twined 
themselves about the heart, and quickened and 
softened it with their balmy influences, were to 
be rudely torn off; and it was to be left to chill 
and harden in its loneliness. Old governments 
were to be overturned ; those long rooted preju- 
dices which strengthen a constitution, not by com- 
pulsive laws, but by fast and w^onted attachments, 
were to be broken up ; an universal democracy 
was to enlighten an alyect and gloomy world w ith 
its blissful reign, and man, and woman too, Avere 
to be held together by the only bond worthy of 
improved reason, the great and general bond of 
philanthropy. 

Though this doctrine was written in blood, 
its ministers marked by a brutal fei'ocity from 
which the good man recoiled, and by a vulgar in- 
solence which the proud man could not brook, yet 
it found in this country, distinguished for sober 
understanding, general information, and humanity, 



15 

its blindest and warmest supporters. Yes, it was 
this revolution which awakened to redoubled vig- 
or of action the leading* opponents of the Wash- 
ington administration — which gave them for blind 
and zealous followers all those characters hanging 
loose on society- — all tlie restless, unprincipled, and 
ambitious, and many honest of heiu't, but of wild 
and heated imaginations. 

Notwithstanding the strength of this opposi- 
tion to his general administration, and the frenzi- 
ed hostility to his impartial, neutral conduct to- 
ward the powers of Europe — notwithstanding the 
cry that we were bound in honour and griititude 
to put on our armour in this holy war of the Great 
Republic against the despots of Europe ; such was 
the old and deep affection — such the self-subduing 
awe which the people felt for Washington, that 
the leaders of the opposition, found it well to pre- 
serve the show of respect for the man they hated 
and envied. This respect was, indeed, but out- 
ward. Wltile they trembled under " the solemn 
aspect, and the high born eye," which made vice 
and hypocrisy feel their littleness ; under the cov- 
er of the press, and in their self-constituted fra- 
ternities, their hatred of the man and of the course 
he pursued, was vented in the grossest falsehoods 
and lowest abuse. 

Tlie melancholy truth was now fully develop- 
ed, that the visionary schemes, so early projected 
in our country, were fast growing into favoi* ; and 
the hope that the sober blessings of our constitu- 
tion would put such dreams to flight, fell to the 
ground. It was evident that the French revolu- 
tion had invigorated and multiplied our tlieorists 
and thcii* disciples— -that it was corrupting the 



16 

morals, and weakening tlie religious sense of tlie 
people ; and that, sliould its doctrine be generally 
diffused, while they were thus enthusiastic in its 
cause, it would infect them with all its cruelty, 
and darken the country with all its horrors. Noth- 
ing but the influence which Washington still had 
over the people, staid them from laying violent 
hands on the constitution. That influence con- 
tinued till the eflervescence of the French revolu- 
tion had subsided, and left a party of tlie intelli- 
gent and thoughtful, with power to hold in check 
the violent and unprincipled. 

In vain shall we turn over the records of an- 
cient times, to read the story of such a Man. In 
vain shall we send the eye abroad, for where now 
lives, and moves, a Washington ? Europe is full 
of giant minds, but in what individual can we find 
a combination of his greatness and virtues ? He 
was the sublimest image of moral greatness, that 
the world ever looked upon. In his presence, 
common men felt awed, and seemed to breath a 
holier atmosphere. His firm, expansive mind 
looked over the country fretted and tossed by the 
petty and angry passions of men ; but his heart 
was calm and sinless. Amidst the flattery and 
threats, the wiles and violence tliat surrounded 
him, he stood 

" Unshaken, unseduced, tmterrified. 
Nor njmber, nor example with him wrought 
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind." 

With a frame stifle ned with age and the toils 
of war, and a mind worn with anxiety, and a lieart 
made sad with the follies of his country ; he at 
last withdrew to that spot of quiet and domestic 
joys on which his eye had e\ev reposed, beaming 
with kind emotions and fond remembrances. Fron 



17 

its shades, lie looked out upon the world ; but the 
crimes which were fast crowding, and the heavy 
sufferings that awaited it, overshadowed the sun- 
shine of his breast, and filled his prophetic soul 
with images of gloom. But the kind Parent of 
ns all, closed the eyes of the good man in death, 
and laid him asleep in the stillness of the tomb, 
with his Fathers. The voice of violence awakes 
not the dead ! The tumult of war breaks not in 
on the silence of the grave ! 

At his death there seemed a pause in nature. 
Every one who loved and honored him, can re- 
member with what a solemn, thrilling feeling the 
story of the death of the Father of his country, 
moved him when it was told. 

Where stands the monument of a nation's 
gratitude to its Protector ? Where shall the stran- 
ger read the tale of his mighty deeds ? Does the 
morning sun gild its top with his brightness ? Does 
he shed his softer light over it at his going down ? 
No marble speaks of his vtorks. Envy forbade 
it. The fear that the people should remember 
his virtues — that the story of his life should teach 
a lesson to after times ; has left no stone to cover 
a nation's Glory. Amidst the shades of liis 
once happy home, is his humble grave ; but the 
God of nature has scattered his beauties around 
it ; he has clothed it in green, and watered it with 
his own dews from heaven. 

We must turn from this solemn scene, to the 
world again — to a world, how changed ! He who 
had kept the bad in awe, and checked the follies 
of the presumptuous, was no longer in the midst 
of us. The period had come to put in practice 
the systems of our wijldest theorists, our most ar- 



18 

dent lovers of Frencli liberty and French revolu- 
tions. 

I was about going* over a short history of these 
authors of ftiir professions, but of evil works ; di- 
recting your attention to the effects of all tlieir la- 
bours — tlie sliame, the hardships, the declining 
virtue of this once proud and happy people — their 
honesty, impaired by a long course of exaction — - 
exaction, enforced by laws subversive of their lib- 
erties — I was about shewing you, your sons and 
daughters taken from the wliolesome labours of 
the field, and kintUy domestic cares ; to draw out 
heartless, joyless lives, in the corrupting crowd of 
a Factory — I was about turning your observation 
to a war of defeat and barbarity on our inland bor- 
ders ' — and then asking you to look back, to the 
once busy, enlivening scenery along the shores of 
our ocean — then, to ponder with iije in sadness 
over cities, tenantless and grass-grown — to call 
to mind tlie noise, the crowd, the hurry, which 
once lilled them — and then walk their deserted 
stiHicts, where the sound of tlie footstep strikes 
distinctly on the ear ; while we seem in the midst 
of the sepidchres of a nation passed away — the 
tombs of departed thousands about us. I had in- 
tended, further, to have unfolded tlie influence 
which France, under all her changes of govern- 
ment, has exercised over this people and its rulers 
- — to have traced to this influence the calamities 
which have befallen us — to have told you of the 
ruin with which the world was tbreatened by her 
lawless, aspiring and wasteful tyrant. But the 
time is far spent, and 1 would not exhaust your 
wejij'ietl spirits with a scene so dreary and com- 



19 

fortless, nor sliiit out from your tired vision that 
light which first shone pale and flickering in the 
North ; but ^\ hich has risen, and spread, and awa- 
kened nations from torpor and darkness. Let us 
rejoice, for the chains of captive nations are brok- 
en asunder, and milUons are returning home from 
bondage ! Let us be glad, for Peace lias visited 
them ! 

But to every moral, and religious man, there 
is a deeper joy, even than this. After all the suf- 
ferings of human nature under the matchless cru- 
elties and horrors of the French revolution, wliat 
nation will hasten to break up long established 
orders, and forms of government, and set the 
weakness and vices of our nature, free from con- 
trol ? Licentiousness will no longer be called lib- 
erty ; nor well-balanced liberty, slavery. The im- 
morality and atlieism of the turbulent revolution, 
and of the settled despotism following it, will no 
longer corrupt the hearts, and bewilder the brains 
of men. Their effects upon the nation wbo taught 
them, and upon tlie world, will be read by after 
ages, and remembered with the multitude of their 
other extravagances and crimes, only to be hated 
and avoided. Old fashioned principles which 
some of the learned had put aAvay through a love 
of novelty, or of an exercise of their ingenuity, or 
above all, tlie pride of leading a new scliool — prin- 
ciples wliich tlie half-informed sneered at to shew 
their independence of mind— -tbese, long neglect- 
ed and despised, will return with all the attrac- 
tions of freshness and newness, to govern the con- 
duct, and bless tlie lives of men. 

It has often been the case, that doctrines erro 



30 

neons in themselves, have gained the attachment 
of the Avorld from something amiable and interest- 
ing in their teachers — Not so with the teachers 
of the French revolution — There was no alluring 
splendor in their crimes, no amiable weakness in 
their follies — every thing in, and about them, was 
perverted — their pride was insolence — their cour- 
age, ferocity — their patriotism, vanity. They are 
remembered only as a terror, and an oftence to 
nations. Thanks to a merciful Providence, their 
course is run ! All they passed over lies bare as 
the desert, and broken with tlie graves of millions. 
But the last of their race is ended. He was 
crushed in the ruins of the throne he had set up. 
Did a people mourn over him who had led them 
to glory ? AYas a city hung in black for him who 
had fdled it w ith the spoils of nations ? No, wheik 
he fell from power, the curses of his own, were 
hea\^ on him. Did he who had overturned 
tlirones from their deep foundations — who light- 
ed the twilight of the North with the blaze of cit- 
ies, and made its frozen regions shake with his 
thunders — did he die from home, and in battle ? 
He left his shattered forces to perish, and return- 
ed, beaten and a fugitive, to a falling kingdom. 
But an avenging power pursued him in his flight. 
Em'ope with her Monarchs moved on to his de- 
struction ; nor staid till it was done. Did he per- 
ish by the sword ? He lives — this man, mighty in 
war, this terror of the human race, lives, the ob- 
ject of a mercy he had never felt, the abject pen- 
sioner of the king he Avronged. Had he fallen in 
the conflict; or had severe justice cut him off"; 
sympathy for his death, might have magnified the 



31 

energies of his evil mind, and gilded over the foul 
corruption of his heart. It is better he should 
live ; for now, the Hero, is no more. The Dia- 
dem this royal thief had stolen, is wrested from 
him — ^the imperial robes in which he wrapped 
about his vanity, are stripped off — ^the spear and 
shield, loosened from his grasp ; and he who was, 
yesterday, the terror of the world, stands, to day, 
its mockery and contempt. With his vain pomp 
and power, have vanished the brilliant pageants 
which shrunk from the touch of sober reality — 
Unrestrained liberty, equality, and perfectibility, 
which floated in gorgeous dies and fantastic forms 
before the eye of the visionary, liave faded away, 
like the clouds which hang over the setting sun. 
Gone, too, is that despotism which silenced the 
voice of gladness — veiled the cheerful face in sor- 
row — chilled every warm and virtuous feeling of 
tlie heart, and weighed it down with present suf- 
ferings, and the fear of countless ills to come. The 
dream of a world in bondage has past away — ^the 
hope of the conqueror is cut off — the old man 
shall go down to the grave in peace ; for days of 
blessings are in store for his children. From the 
motionless and silent gloom, Avhich, but yesterday, 
shrouded the world, has shone out a cheering, 
quickening light — sounds of thankfulness and joy 
fill the earth, and over the poverty and desolation 
which covered it, nature is again pouring out her 
plenty, and spreading wide her beauties. 

May we have a heart to share in the general 
joy ! May the past sufferings of the world be a 
wholesome lesson to us ! MaJ^ the scliemes of 
rlie enthusiastic and the artful be laid aside ! May 



§3 

we return to tlie good way in which we once 
walked, and he hlessed, as we once were hlessed ! 
Then sliall our day he long and glorious ; and 
when it shall have closed ahout us ; the stranger 
shall visit our land — shall read our departed 
greatness in our ruins — shall look with veneration 
npon the hroken fabrics of our poAver — the mon- 
uments of the statesmen, the heroes and hards that 
adorned and protected us. 



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